As much as I like the excitement of snow days (these are relatively benign disasters, after all), I miss color; I miss smells. The winter world is black and white. Snow is bright, dissembling, soft, while roads become slick, black two-tracks. The bare, black arms of trees are laden with pretty fluff, but the long-view is obscured. And when it melts, the sun only shines on dirt. I become insular, dulled senses driving me inward, and inward, I find that I want to sweat in light clothes again, to catch a ribbon of barbecue threading a hot wind, to suck in the scent of honey locust and mimosa trees in bloom, even though they make my whole face ache. But it’s winter. What can one do?
As for sweating in light clothes, a return to yoga took care of that yearning, and I’m still sore. But color and smell require some concocting. My cabin fever has developed into kitchen mania. I’ve had an insatiable sweet-tooth all winter long, and I’ve indulged it. Wildflower honey stirred into hot milk before bed. Quince paste and camembert on mini-toasts. A key lime pie in a home-baked graham cracker crust (this, courtesy of Laura) doesn’t last 24 hours in this joint. And the chocolate! One wonderful bar after another, dark, darker, blended with sea salt and turbinado sugar, melted into hot cocoa – my love knows no limits.
But it’s bigger culinary projects that have turned my kitchen tropical with pots aboil on the range, or Phoenix-hot from constant oven use. Of course, the best thing about cooking isn’t the flurry of color on the cutting board, or the clouds of flavor you can smell down the hall – it’s diving face-first into the results. While the inches pile up, I’ll have ribs in the slow-cooker, collards on the range, and I’ll be conjuring up some sweet finish. Meanwhile, let me share with you the recipes for a few of my more successful kitchen adventures: jerk-pork and goat cheese wrap, chicken and wild rice soup, and cherry-pecan bread pudding. Enjoy:
Jerk Pork and Goat Cheese Wrap
(I prepared the jerk pork in the slow-cooker. Low and slow oven would do.)
1-2 lb. pork loin
Rub with a blend of the following spices to-taste:
1 tbs sea salt
Red chili pepper or cayenne
Black pepper
Thyme
Cinnamon
Clove
White pepper (scant)
Fresh ground nutmeg (scant)
Put it in the slow cooker with this mixture, and cook 4-5 hours:
2tbs cider vinegar
¼ cup molasses
¼ cup brown sugar
1 minced onion
2 minced garlic cloves
Take pork out of the cooker and pull it apart with forks. Strain juices to remove pulp, and reduce. Use this reduction to baste meat.
Sauté red bell pepper strips and onion strips.
Smear your wrap with goat cheese; the creaminess and tang complement the acidity and sweetness of the jerk pork. Add the pork, peppers and onions, and some fresh baby spinach. Wrap and enjoy!
Chicken Wild Rice Soup
Step 1: Start with a gallon of chicken stock. I make my stock a day in advance. I buy a small chicken, and I cut off and reserve the breast meat. I boil down the rest of the chicken all day, with carrots, celery hearts and onions in the stock, too. I salt the stock so that the finished product is just a bit less salty than I want the soup to be in the end.
Step 2: make a roux with ½ cup of melted butter and 1 cup of flour, careful not to brown the butter or roux.
Step 3: prepare wild rice, 3 cups cooked.
Step 4: chop the following:
1 cup celery
1cup carrots
1 cup onion
2 cups sliced white mushrooms
4b. Brown the first three ingredients in schmaltz (chicken fat from the stock). Toward the end of browning, add the mushrooms, which will brown up quicker than the others.
Step 5: cube and brown white chicken meat
Step 6. Stir roux into stock and simmer until thickened.
Stir in vegetables and rice, along with: Salt to-taste, and ¼ tsp each of black pepper, white pepper, ground nutmeg and cayenne pepper.
Stir in 1 cup heavy whipping cream. Simmer until all flavors marry, and serve!
You may top your soup with toasted, slivered almonds, or a tablespoon of cream sherry.
Cherry Pecan Bread Pudding
4-5 cups white bread, left out overnight to dry out.
Mix 1 cup of granulated sugar with 2 cups of whole milk, five eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. (You might add cinnamon as well.) Pour this mixture over the chopped up, dry bread and let it soak in for ten minutes. All this goes into a greased pan. I used a square one. I sprinkled in 1/2 - 1 cup of dried cherries, and pushed them into the bread-custard just a bit. (They sink some while baking.)
Separately, combine 1/2 stick of soft butter with 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar and 1 cup chopped pecans. Sprinkle over the puddin'. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes
PS: I had I promised I'd blog about football weekend in Ann Arbor. While the events which unfolded there have been well-documented, I decided that they were inappropriate for public forum. Ask me privately. (The Big Green Bottle strikes again.)
